Flowers from Indonesia

by Dave Marshall on June 24th

As one of the most populated countries in the world, Indonesia represents plenty of opportunities to develop its existing commercial cut flower industry. However, the floricultural trade in Indonesia remains relatively small scale despite the size of the country and the potential volume of flower exports that could be produced. Existing flower production centres are split amongst six key regions of Indonesia, which include Jabotabek, North Sumatra, Riau, East Java, West Java and Central Java. Jakarta, Semarang,Malang, Surabaya, Bandong, Medan, Denpasar and Ujung Pandang are Indonesian cities that are of chief importance to the country's global commercial cut flower industry, although price figures on production levels remain unavailable.

Indonesia adopted several national flowers (the Melati or Jasmine, Moon Orchid and Rafflesia) instead of the customary one. Indeed, perhaps the Indonesian Government chose three flowers as opposed to just one in order to better reflect the country's diverse, rich and colourful variety of flora, which are among the most unique and spectacular found anywhere in the world. Of course, the vast majority of flora in Indonesia belongs to the wild and has no place in the commercial cut industry.

Nevertheless, Indonesia's range of commercial cut flowers remains impressive. Indeed, ornamental plants typically grown in regions such as North Sumatra include the gladiolus, aster, gerbera, chrysanthemum, dahlia, anthurium and sedap malam. As a sign of the country's stance on floriculture, most of these flowers are cultivated alongside vegetable produce, which remains of much greater importance to the country for obvious reasons.Notwithstanding this, Indonesia has managed to forge niche markets in various Far East countries in addition to several in the Western world. The rose and cala lily are also widely grown in Indonesia, alongside various ornamental plants including azalea and hibiscus.